#but I kind of appreciate there was no human romance and sex/inhuman lack of romance and sex that was sorta lowkey going on in the original

[specialagentartemis]

The Murderbot Diaries and Terminator: Dark Fate: What Does a Killer Robot WANT, Anyway?

The Terminator (1984) is probably the most famous killer robot in media, setting the image for a what a killer robot is.  It’s shaped like a bodybuilder, weapons built into its metal skeleton, eyes hidden behind cool and impersonal sunglasses, a threateningly “foreign” accent, and no feelings, no remorse, and no desires besides killing its target.  Kyle Reese describes it to Sarah Connor bluntly: “That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!”  And the film supports this wholeheartedly.  We get a few scenes from the Terminator’s perspective, and they do not really indicate that it has much in the way of personality or free will.  It’s scary because it is a ruthlessly efficient, tireless, and analytical machine built to kill.  It will not stop until its target is dead, or it is.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) gives us a nice Terminator, a Terminator captured from its controlling Skynet and re-programmed to help Sarah and John Connor rather than hunt them.  This Terminator gives slightly more suggestions that it has a personality of its own, but ultimately it is still now ruthlessly efficient, tireless, and analytical in protecting its charges, but it still dies at the end in the course of fulfilling its objective.  It was, after all, programmed by the human rebels to protect John Connor, and it did.

Did the Terminator want any of that?  The second film halfheartedly cares a little, and the first film certainly did not at all.  It’s an irrelevant question.  It’s a robot; it’s incapable of truly wanting anything, it just does as it’s programmed.  It fulfills its objective.

In modern sci-fi, that’s not really a satisfying answer anymore.  It looks like a human, has human organic parts built into it, and it clearly has the ability to process large amounts of information and make complex and reasoned decisions.  Why do we write it off so thoroughly?  Does a Terminator like what it does?  Would it choose this?  What does a Terminator want?

The Murderbot Diaries (2017-present) by Martha Wells isn’t a direct answer to this question, but it sure is considering it.

The titular Murderbot is very similar to the Terminator: a human-form cyborg, a robot with human organic parts built in, a machine with guns in its arms made to do a job and that job being to protect and/or oppress humans.  But as a thinking, feeling, complex entity, it has opinions about that job.

You know what else is a clear response to early Terminator movies’ fundamental uninterest in the Terminator’s inner life and personal opinions on things?  Later Terminator movies.  Specifically Terminator: Dark Fate (2019).

The fact that The Murderbot Diaries and Dark Fate came out at roughly the same time, in the same sci-fi AI-story zeitgeist, looking back critically at the 80’s and early 90’s Terminator and asking, well, what would it do if it didn’t have to murder, who would it be if it had the choice, is telling.

The Murderbot Diaries stars Murderbot, a SecurityUnit owned by a callously greedy and corner-cutting company that uses such SecUnits ostensibly to protect but in reality to intimidate, control, and surveil human clients.  It calls itself “Murderbot” and all SecUnits as a whole “murderbots” for a reason.  The world of the books sees SecUnits as mindless killer robots kept in check by their programming, in a very similar way that the Terminator was presented in 1984. We see the story from Murderbot’s point of view: it’s snarky, depressed, anxious, bitter, funny, and very opinionated.  It also really, really hates intimidating, controlling, and surveilling people, and it specifically broke its own programming meant to keep it compliant so it wouldn’t have to hurt people.  Instead, it wants to half-ass its job and watch soap operas… but it’s sympathetic to humans in danger despite itself, and when it chooses humans it cares about, it will go to great lengths (ruthless, but very tired and full of fear and pity) to protect them.  What does it want?  To be given space; to not be given orders; to have the ability to take its time and watch its shows and determine what its job as Security means to it.

Terminator: Dark Fate takes a different tack.  (It’s actually about three badass women and I’m very sorry for focusing on the man-like character here BUT) Dark Fate presents an alternate timeline off the main series, where the Terminator succeeded in killing young John Connor.  Previously, we had seen Terminators that would not stop until they were dead; this one fulfills Reese’s other warning.  It will not stop until John Connor is dead.  Well…. it succeeded.  John Connor is dead.

Now what?

In the opening scene, we see this from his mother Sarah Connor’s perspective.  The Terminator appears out of time, ambushes and kills young John Connor, and then stands there looking impassively at the destruction it wrought while Sarah screams.

It looks cold and satisfied when that scene is first presented.  But when we see it again from the Terminator’s perspective, it seems to just stand there, staring stupidly, suddenly with no direction in life.  It fulfilled its objective.  It followed its programming.  Now it has no more objective, can receive no more orders, and its programming has nothing more to tell it to do.  It eventually disappears into the woods, learns more about humanity, grows a conscience, lives in a little cabin with a woman and her son fleeing an abusive husband in an apparently mutually very supportive relationship, chops wood, drives a truck, and gives Sarah Connor insider information to allow her to track down other incoming Terminators as a way of atonement.  It does have remorse, if given time to think for itself and realize it.  It doesn’t really want to hurt people, and even, similar to Murderbot, has a drive to use its strength and intimidating-ness to protect the people it chooses.  It mostly wants to be quietly and safely left alone.

Both the Terminator and Murderbot are killer robots left adrift, aimless, reeling, suddenly having to decide for themselves what to do with their lives for the first time.  Both are stories that circle back to the original Terminator premise and say, okay, but that killer robot isn’t killing for the sheer thrill of it, it was forced into doing that by a top-down authority in control of its programming.  That would kind of fuck someone up, actually.  It’s a hopeful narrative: these things are people, and they don’t want to be hurting other people.  When given the option, they just want to rest, make amends, understand the truth, find a place they belong, and see the people they care about safe.  And I think it’s fascinating that not only is smaller, literary sci-fi asking this question and telling this story, but so is the Terminator franchise itself.

We also just as blatantly see the evolution of Sarah Connor as a character.  In The Terminator (1984) the Terminator is sent to kill Sarah Connor.  When I was watching it recently with some friends who had never seen it before, they guessed—almost correctly—“oh, it’s because she’s the rebel leader in the future!”  Sorry guys, this is a 1980s mainstream sci-fi blockbuster.  Her as-yet unborn son is going to be the rebel leader.  That’s why the robots in the future need to kill her, before she gives birth to the hero of the humans.  Blech, I know. 

Over the course of the movie, though, she becomes tough, fierce, and brave, the type who can and will survive the apocalypse; in future movies and tv series (like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 2008, where she gets to be the eponymous title character this time!), she gets to be a strong leader in her own right.  This is particularly true in Terminator: Dark Fate, where Sarah Connor is a tough, grizzled, middle-aged Terminator-fighter, who steals heavy weaponry from the government to track down and kill Terminators arriving from the future.  She becomes a mentor to the new woman being hunted down by the new Terminator threat, Dani Ramos.  This time, though, Dani isn’t fated to be the mother of the human rebel leader—she is destined to become the human rebel leader herself.  Along with Dani’s own Kyle Reese figure, a cybernetically-augmented human fighter from the future named Grace, women get central action-hero and rebel-leader roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, feeling like an awkward apology for the sexism inherent in the premise of 1984’s The Terminator.  (However, Dark Fate stops short of committing to the Dani-Sarah/Grace-Reese parallel and letting them be lesbians.  It’s still a mainstream action movie, I guess.)  We even see the development of a curt but resentfully respectful understanding between Sarah Connor and the Terminator that killed her son.

I lay this out because in the same way I see the literary DNA of the Terminator in Murderbot, I see elements of Sarah Connor in Dr. Mensah.  She’s the human protagonist—the one who would be the protagonist if All Systems Red had been from the human perspective—and feels like the answer to a similar question to “what does a killer robot want?”, namely, “what if, instead of enemies locked into battle to the death, the badass human and the killer robot worked together and came to an understanding? What if they could be friends instead of enemies?”  Mensah also feels like a feminist response to some of the issues I had with Sarah Connor—that she didn’t get to be the leader herself, that despite her own strength and tenacity being the mother to the leader was the most important thing she would do—and responds to them in a similar way that Dark Fate somewhat apologetically does. Mensah is the leader of her society (her planet).  Mensah is a mother and she is a scientist and a leader and gets her badass action-hero moments (MINING DRILL).  She is the first to reach out to Murderbot.  To ask it how it feels, and calm down the others later when they’re afraid; her relationship with Murderbot is unique.  She’s a foil to Murderbot in a parallel but opposite way that Sarah Connor is a foil to the Terminator.  And while in Dark Fate they are not friends (the Terminator did still kill Sarah’s son, even if it didn’t specifically want to) we see the same kind of desire reflected: what if they were at least allies?  What if they were working together?  How would that relationship go?  What kind of understanding could they come to, about what it means to be human and to be machine? It's a smaller part of the movie and they don't give a whole lot of answers, but it's there.

Both All Systems Red (and the subsequent Murderbot Diaries books) and Terminator: Dark Fate were released in a very different sci-fi zeitgeist than The Terminator was.  They’re both looking back, and reacting to it: Dark Fate directly, The Murderbot Diaries indirectly.  And they’re approaching the concept of the Terminator and its Sarah Connor figure with similar questions: What does the robot want, aside from its programming to kill, and if it could be freed of its programming to kill, what kind of relationships—with society, with the concept of self-determination, and with its human woman foil—could it potentially be able to develop, with that freedom?

[thecursedhellblazer]

romantic headcanons.

name: John Constantine alias: Hellblazer, ConJob, The Laughing Magician, The World’s Greatest Con Man, El Diablo, The Constant One gender: male sexual orientation: pansexual romantic orientation: demiromantic

preferred pet names: John pretty much plays along with whatever nickname his partner(s) decide to use for him, from “classic” ones to whatever thing the people he’s seeing might have come up with. This means that even insults can become pet names, when used by his current partner, no matter how bad they can get. relationship status: single / verse dependant (I currently have a verse in which he’s building a poly relationship, another in which he’s (un)officially dating but it might get more than official at some point, and one in which he has a proper stable boyfriend)

opinion on true love:  John believes that a kind of love that comes close to be defined as such exists. He has experience a similar feeling in person a few times (with Nick and Zatanna, with Kit). However, because of his past experiences, he isn’t very confident on the fact that he’ll ever manage to find a way to keep that sort of relationship going. The closer someone gets to him, the worse fate awaits ahead of them or the deeper he disappoints them. opinion on love at first sight: John believes in “attraction at first sight”, but not in love at first sight. That’s in part because getting attached is often not an option for him. When it comes to sex and romance, he prefers going for something casual, with few string attached. It’s it’s safer and less complicated, and it hurts less with things inevitably fall apart. So, he isn’t one to fall fast for people. He wouldn’t be able to even if he tried (with a few exceptions). how ‘romantic’ are they?: John can be a romantic, especially if it’s something that his partner(s) enjoy. Personally, he likes doing some traditional couple stuff, like going out for dinner, going to concerts, having a picnic or even just having an aimless stroll around holding hands. He likes trying to play the cook and cooking homemade meals...even if the results aren’t always stellar. So, when he really cares for someone (or he is in love) John is…a lot of things. He tries to be charming, confident, playful and appealing, and he wines and dines his partner(s) as much as they allow him to. However, he can also be a huge, sometimes sappy dork. He’d go to hell and back, literally too, to try and make his partner(s) happy (and that’s part of his idea of romance too).

ideal physical traits: John’s tastes when it comes to his partners’ physical appearances are, to say the least, variegated. Considering that he finds attractive beings from very different species, it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly draws him to someone, physically speaking. He has a certain preference for inhuman traits, especially if they could be somehow harmful for him (he finds the thrill of danger is too appealing for his sake). Another thing that he likes, in humans and non-humans alike, is physical strength. He likes someone who can crush him and hold him down, or who can put up a fight when he does that. ideal personality traits: John enjoys someone who can match his wits, who is cunning and can challenge him, keep him on his toes. He’s also attracted to people who can be too straightforward and who are strong-willed and determined, bold and not easily deterred, perhaps because those are all qualities someone needs to have to manage to stay around him for a prolonged amount of time. He’s also drawn to people who are fierce and passionate or have strong emotions, but can also keep an open mind. He can appreciate if his partner(s) have a kind, softer, perhaps even nurturing side, because, whether he wants to admit it or not, he tends to cling and find solace in such affections.

unattractive physical traits: Again, it’s just as hard to pinpoint what John might not like as it is to find specific physical traits that he found more attractive (I mean, at some point he had sex with a bunch of sentients organs, for the gods!). He’s open to give everyone and everything a try (as long as it’s consensual), though not all the experiences turn out to be pleasant. Those, he tends to avoid the second time. unattractive personality traits: Dullness, excessive ignorance or lack of smartness. Hypocrisy, because John might be a liar, but that kind of behaviour irks him to no end. People who are too pretentious, who have a too high idea of themselves without having a good reason to justify it. People who force themselves on others, in any way. Someone who’s too obsessive (because of bad past experiences) or too self-absorbed to spare the effort every relationship needs to work out.

do they have a type?: Yes and no. He has a preference for whoever checks most of the boxes when it comes to what he generally likes in a partner, but every case turns out to be different. It’s also true that most of his lovers, though, held some sort of power over him, be it because they are strong (physically or mentally or “magically) or because they for some reason have the upper hand in the relationship. Strong-willedness and ability to call him out on his bullshit are other recurrent traits. opinion of public affection: When he’s fond of someone, John can get very touchy-feely, if not straight out handsy, around them, no matter if they are alone or in public. He is very much open to PDA, but he restrains himself if his partner prefers avoid them. The same can’t be said for when they are in private, because then any excuse (and even the lack of one) is good to gets his hands on whoever he’s seeing.

favourite canon ship: Uuuh, I’m going to say Nick / John / Zatanna. We don’t see much of it in canon, aside from their tragic falling out, but I like to think that they had a good run before everything fell apart. John was obviously so very in love with them both, and the three of them balanced each other well and were a positive influence in each other’s life, even if at the same times they also tended to bring out the worst in each other. For all those reasons and more, I love the verse I’ve been building with @adventurepunks​​ because it allows me to explore all the shades of their complicated relationship. I liked, even if not as much, John’s relationship with Kit. Though, I must say that I’m glad (for her) that it didn’t work out, because that wonderful woman deserves so much better than him (just as Zatanna). favourite non-canon ship: I have three main non-canon relationships. John / Demon John (which I write in my verse with @thedemonconstantine ) and that’s a pairing I also ship in general (meaning outside RPs). Then we have John / Oliver Queen, with @thegreenxrcher​​​ (and with her too I have a whole verse). Last but not least, John / Nick Sethson ( Devil OC written by @paradiseturnedhell​​​). Each of this ships has its own peculiar appeal to me and I could write an essay for each of them, but I’ll spare you all x’D However, I want to make some special mentions too. I have build a wonderful friendships (with occasional benefits) with @obsessionsarenotforheroes​​​ and her Jessica. I’m developing a ship (or should I say shipS? xD How does it even work with Marc xD) with @fistofhnsw​​​. John & @laughter-in-white​​‘s croptop J because their friends-with-benefits relationship is hilarious. And, finally, John and Koriand’r ( @blizzardmuses​​​...‘cause they kissed twice “for science” so it counts...right???)

*

tagged by: @laughter-in-white & @paradiseturnedhell tagging: @thegreenxrcher (one of the demons?) @fistofhnsw @adventurepunks @blizzardmuses​ @elisethetraveller​ @goldentemplariumcrow​ @seekthedarknesswithin​ - & whoever wants to steal this !

[alicejohnsonart]

Romanticism

The  basic  idea  in Romanticism  is  that reason  cannot  explain everything. "Romanticism"  is  a  period,  movement,  style,  or genre  in  literature, music,  and  other arts  starting  in  the  late  1700s and  flourishing  through to  the  mid-1800s and was followed by realism. It then followed   a  time  when  the modern  mass  culture  in  which  we  now  live  first  took  from following  the  establishment of  modern  social systems  during  the Enlightenment  or  Age  of  Reason. It is the historical period of literature in which most modern readers began to see a reflection of themselves and their own modern conflicts and desires. Towards the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism quickly began to spread across Europe and the United States. It originally originated in Germany and then spread throughout England and France and then the rest of Europe. It was also seen as a reaction against the age of enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, empiricism and rationality.

A French poet  Charles Baudelaire once quoted “To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, colour, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.” – Many artists believed that their art should show a particular emotion and in many cases Baudelaire’s work showed a sense of fear but were also quite controversial exploring themes of sex, death, lesbianism, metamorphosis, depression, urban corruption, lost innocence and alcohol not only gained him loyal followers, but also created controversy and disagreement.

The  Romantic  era  rises  from the  new  wealth, stability,  and  sense of  progress  created  by  the  preceding  Enlightenment – The  Enlightenment is  to  be  most important  period because  it  founded the  institutions  of  modern  society and  continues  as  the  most  powerful  set  of  ideas  or  social systems  shaping  and  directing human  life  on Earth. This era is based around the dependent appreciation of the beautifulness of surroundings around us, it is not about ‘love’ or ‘romance’ but about the passion  and desire in which creates these feelings and beliefs. It is an act of personal expression of emotion, passion and revolution and is also based on being yourself which in a way changed the course of art.

“Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling” – Charles Baudelaire. I believe that this is because artists at this time began exploring different emotional, psychological and even physical states focusing on their true passions which created new ideas and views that came about the artist being a brilliant and individual creator which are some of the characteristics of the romantic attitude as well as focusing  on emotions, feelings, and moods of all kinds including spirituality, imagination, mystery, and passion.

The great Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich summed up Romanticism by saying, "the artist's feeling is his law".

Romanticism   can  be  defined  by  its  downhearted  wistfulness,  an  undefined  longing,  an  alienation from  reality  and  it  is  a  tendency  to  an  unpolitical  attitude  which its  involvement  of  the  self  and in  the  mysterious forces  of  nature  and God,  and  finally, a  pervasive  pessimism  and  obsession with  death. This movement could be seen as  the rejection of the idealisation and rationality, but is also the movement which shifted attitudes of artist and many other people away from the classical tradition in art throughout centuries and continues to be a strong influence in today’s culture. While researching into this movement I found that there was a massive interest in the medieval era as well as folk culture and national and ethic culture, I also realised that there was a huge emphasis upon the imagination as a sort of gateway and shows a kind of liking for the mysterious and the immoral evils in a way relating a lot the devil/ Satan.

Coleridge and Wordsworth’s influential “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” captured the essence of the romantic movement in England but they also transformed romanticism into one of the most recognisable  and significant movements in all English literature.

They showed quiet a large Interest in Shakespeare and Medieval art as well as  literature which flourished at this time—an effect of the interest in discovering the true “folk-spirit” of the English people.  The Romantics made much of Shakespeare’s lack of college education, casting him as something of a rustic genius.  

it  also shows how romanticism can stem off to Gothicism, which is an interest in the Medieval art and architecture that can be a celebration of Western European creativity. Such as the fairies, witches, demons, and monsters of the medieval imagination which also reappear a lot in a new genre, the Gothic novel.  Coleridge’s poetry frequently takes a Gothic turn, as, for example, in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Emotionalism- As a further reaction to the strict formality and cool rationality of Enlightenment era art and emotion—particularly Gothic horror, amazement, sexual titillation, as well as the kind opinions of affection, sorrow, and longing became the subject of Romantic period art of all kinds. Romantic poetry and novels are characterized by soppiness which creates powerful emotions and in search of inspirational experiences which allow the readers/ viewers to get a full sense of raw emotion.

and finally, Exoticism- The Romantics often symbolized alternative approaches of living and thinking and began  further means by which the Romantics distanced themselves from the emphatic era of the Enlightenment and began to imagine parallel worlds and times through which to contemplate new ways of approaching relationships, religion, and politics.

Romantic writers are concerned with nature, human feelings, compassion for mankind, freedom of the individual and Romantic hero, and rebellion against society. Writers also experiment with the discontent that they feel against all that seems commercial, inhuman, and standardized. Another example of romanticism is the novel Frankenstein which was written by  Mary Shelley in 1818, the masterpiece Frankenstein derives many its most important themes from the Romantic movement, which emerged primarily in Germany in the 18th century in reaction to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

Some of romanticism’s most key features include the celebration of nature, its association of the beautiful and the grotesque  and the struggles of an individual against society. All of which play a role within Frankenstein all of which create one of the most fascinating novels in the English language, Shelley goes on to show that the monster is a Romantic hero because of the rejection he must bear from normal society. Wherever he goes, the monster is chased away because of his hideous appearance and his huge size and that she is attempting to show her readers how many people in society reject the less than average or disfigured souls who live on the borders of our society.